"what good is it? "  Finally, a useful comment on cryptocurrency. When all is said and done, it is just a pattern of magnetic fields in a thin film of magnetic material. Now, you can say the same thing for the work I do. Looked at in simplest, physical terms, I get paid to make patterns of tiny magnetic fields on films on disks. But that patterns that I help make reduce down to new programs or firmware to make our customer's equipment work better, designs for new, better hardware or equipment, instructions on how to use our hardware and/or software. In short, for our customers at least, the patterns do reduce down to something of real, intrinsic value, and the amount of value is determined by the quality of the pattern of magnetic fields.

But in a bitcoin or other cryptocurrency, although the pattern of magnetic fields is designed so that no one else can copy it and claim whatever value it has for me, the pattern has no meaning, use, or value other than proclaim that it is. Bitcoins have value only because people think they are cute or fun or whatever, and are willing to trade things of real value for them. And even pieces of paper with patterns of ink on them have real value in this sense, because so many, many people will gladly trade them for items that are of intrinsic value. If suddenly people lost interest in buying bitcoins (fraud, scandal, etc), then there would be no bottom to the real world value of those patterns of magnetic fields, because they don't correspond to anything of intrinsic value. Accept maybe the ones where you generate special sequences of prime numbers to mine the coins. The sequence of primes may have some slight value to mathematicians. Or maybe not.

So if you want to have fun with virtual money and have grown tired of playing with Monopoly money, then bitcoins may be something to play with. But you are not likely to see me exchanging real money for patterns of magnetic fields that do nothing more than proclaim that they are patterns of magnetic fields.

[/soap box]

Mike